My 'Preventative Healthcare'

Found this little odd bright beautiful orange thing in the squash bin at HEB. Going to steam with Fuji apples and add little wee bit of brown sugar and butter and raw walnuts to go along with roasted chicken and another side veggie dish. Loaded with vitamin A. It is called an organic Kuri squash....I have never seen one before now. Here it goes....will let you know. I love food adventure.

Quick and Dirty

I am happy to have this new blog and happy to meet some new mamas. I love knowing how others do this food thing at home. The farmers are interesting to me too. To get down to it and join in, here is my blog for more about me and my family.

First on the subject of food, I want to share a tip if you don't already do this. With little ones and only one pair of mama hands, I use a meal tray for our meals. I just started this practice anticipating leisurely tea times with my new tray (screech on the record player sound) Back to reality..I use it practically. Especially for breakfasts and lunches during the week. I load up our tray with our food in the kitchen on plates, napkins, flatware, drink glasses and water carafe for the table and vitamins or any condiments, sauces, whatever. The whole tray goes to the table, the kids help set the table from it and then when we are finished, reload and I haul it back to the kitchen. So have fun with that if you like it. By the way, I picked up this tray at Target for 20$ and it is made of bamboo..I love it and worth it for sure.

Those bottles (exception, the honey bear) are my dead kombucha tea and my dead kefir grains! Yes, the kombucha is no longer fizzy and the kefir got left for over seven days...so this is reality..I will restart the fermenting process again soon...I hope.

Okay, now for the food: Quick Green Eggies (common, easy meal in my house adapted from Cathe Olsen, The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook, buy on her site: http://www.simplynaturalbooks.com/

Get out a medium iron skillet, set on medium heat on stove, warm up with olive oil or butter and then gather ingredients:

• Five eggs in bowl, beaten (or, if short on eggs, use three and add a bit of water ;-)



• Fairly well chopped couple of handfuls of spinach, kale, chard, bok choy



• Dash of tamari



• Scant tsp. of curry powder



• Clove of garlic minced or through a garlic press as I do OR, use garlic powder ( I keep a foil bag from Froniter in my freezer for real quick cooking)

Put it together:

1. Mix up with whisk or fork all ingredients except the greens.



2. When butter melted in skillet, put greens in, let sizzle and spread out to an even layer with spatula



3. When greens look to your liking, a little softened, pour egg mixture in, push around until to your desired cooked level for eggs. Top with grated cheddar cheese (optional)



4. Plate up with a side of plain yogurt and applesauce in a small bowl OR, fresh diced fruits and hot chamomile tea with honey and cream. In the photo, I also added bacon, carrot bran muffins and cranberry orange muffins (Veg. Mother's Cookbook) that I prebake and freeze but that is another post. ;-)

Enjoy! If you find that you want to adjust the seasonings on this..you can!! Add more, leave stuff out....just get some green veggies in your little people right??? Let me know if you try this one or already do it. (hey, posting this took me 20 minutes..I think I can do this!!) -Traci

P.S. -made this a day or so ago and took a photo..I stack the plates but you can always have more than one tray. It would still save trips back and forth to the kitchen while you are wanting to keep their attention for morning bible study/homeschool. You know how they scatter if you are not prepared??....oy!

short cuts to whole foods

cooking with whole foods doesn't always have to be a time consuming process. i wanted to share our lunch today to show that simple short cuts can save lots of time in front of the stove!
moonpie found snow peas at the grocery store this week and REALLY wanted them. how can you say no to that? i had thought to stir-fry them with some other veggies, but i found that i wasn't really in the mood for that much food prep. so we improvised.

first i started the rice around 11. the basic measurement i use for that is 1 cup short grain brown rice to 2 1/4 cups water. it takes about 45 minutes to cook (once it starts boiling turn the heat down and cover).

around 11:45 we headed to the kitchen to finish up lunch prep. by this point the rice was turned way low and all of the water was absorbed, so i threw the fresh snow peas on top and put the lid back on. i do this all the time! it is a quick way to steam some veggies without having to mess up another pan! i love this method. i do it with noodles and broccoli too.

while that was steaming, moonpie set to work peeling and cutting carrots into sticks. you could save even more time by buying the little carrots, but i always just buy the big 5 pound bag for juicing and snacking. works out to be cheaper for me.



buddy and i worked on the tahini peanut sauce for dipping the carrots and snow peas in:

3 T tahini
1 T peanut butter
1 t maple syrup
1 T brown rice vinegar
1/2 t coriander

mix with fork. (adapted from cynthia lair's 'feeding the whole family: cooking with whole foods')

when we were done with the sauce, i turned off the stove and plated the snow peas. then i added turmeric and kelp to the rice, plated that, and the raw carrots. i gave each person their own dipping bowl of sauce.

that was it! it was super easy- took about 15 minutes of actual hands-on time (that includes searching for the rice vinegar!). the kids really loved this meal. man, they will eat anything with that sauce on it!

happy eating!

-mandi